2. amps-preamps
  3. 1216064971

15 watts & 94 db eff. speakers: how loud?

With a Trends 15 watt t-amp and small tekton design speakers, with 6 inch fostex 167es, rated @ about 94db, i can get about 93-4 db sustained average (@ 1 meter per speaker) with peaks around 96-7. It sounds perfectly good, nice and clean, no treble break up, nothing different than @lower volumes, only louder.

BUT, at ANY higher volume the amp starts to clip. One hears of many such rigs with even lower wattage 300Bs and such, which is why i wanted the efficiency of the speaker (as well as its single driver design). I've never really used a solid state, much less digital amp before. I'm wondering, is this the nature of hard clipping in digital amps, to begin before there is any real noticeable distortion or is something wrong with the amp? Is this generally how solid state clips? How loud should speakers of this efficiency go with this many t-watts? Finally, how many watts do I need to have some more head room (let's face it, I'm only comfortable with my rig when I know I can accidentally destroy the speakers late one night) : )

Thanks in advance!
thomp9015
rockadanny
1,037 posts
 
Philjolet - huh? 3dB increase can be detected by most.

Joelv - huh? each 3dB increase requires around (not exact) double the power, not tenfold. so 97 requires 2 watts, 100 requires 4 watts.
johnk's avatar
johnk
1,490 posts
 
3DB twice as loud. 1 watt 97db if 8 ohms. 2 watts 100db, 4 watts 103db. A fe166e in a BLH is a much diferant beast can play louder more dynamic than a fe167e in BR. The BR versions of fostex horn drivers are poor performing unless used in nearfield or at low volumes more power will not help. A SET tube amp might give a wee bit more SPL before sounding hard. You just reached the max SPL that this fe167e driver in the BR cabinet can produce before sounding poor. 1 reason we offer no BR fostex fullrange except f200a. Our FE126e and fe166e are all BLH. As they should be.
gregm
3,021 posts
 
Johnk: 3dB = ~1,4x as loud. 6 dB = twice as loud. You know that, of course! It's sound *pressure* he's talking about.

Back on topic: in theory, your amp clips at ~103-104 dB. That's quite loud, btw!
undertow
1,032 posts
 
I believe all seem to be wrong here, DOUBLE or twice as loud I belive is 10 db... So if your playing at a volume of 90 db 100 db would be necessary output to double it.. 3 db louder is notable, but not a TON louder, 6 db is a pretty solid increase but not double as loud.

Double "The power" wattage is required to do 3 db louder, but will not do 10 db louder in order to get double as loud.
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,262 posts
 
rockadanny - I read (in TAS I think) that 3db is not detectable to the human ear and that 10db sounds like double the volume even though 3db is actually double when instruments are used.
More to discover